


The flowers of death

by Hoeratius



Series: One night in Paris [4]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Because everybody is young and beautiful and obsessed with the macabre, Gen, References to Oscar Wilde, in Paris!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27004486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoeratius/pseuds/Hoeratius
Summary: Montmartre, Paris, 1895. A series of mysterious deaths leads the Guard to a secret society, which seeks to blur the boundaries between this world and the next. At an undercover mission, Nicolò discovers the host has a terrible secret.**Silent as a shadow, Nicolò craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the attic and felt his stomach plummet.A cursed portrait would have been the easier problem to deal with.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: One night in Paris [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931623
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	The flowers of death

‘What’s this?’ Nile turned a sheet of thick, creamy paper over in her hands. One side showed an ink drawing of the Guard in outlandish dress: Nicky sporting a cravat and extremely regrettable moustache; Joe in elaborate robes with a curved sword dangling from his hip; and Andy standing tall and regal, dressed in a Greek gown and leafy headpiece. A disembodied hand rested on Andy’s waist, the rest of the person torn off.

The other side carried an invitation:

> _Yusuf al-Kaysani,_
> 
> _You are cordially invited to a soirée with the Society of the Silver Rose, at 7 Rue Dancourt, September 28._
> 
> _Walk in the Light_.

‘Oh, I remember that.’ Joe grinned as he took the paper from her. ‘Armand drew it. Great night.’

Nile sat down by the fire, resting her chin in her hands, ready for a story. ‘What happened?’

‘A job,’ said Nicky, at the same time that Andy snatched the invitation from Joe and muttered, ‘Nothing.’

***

** NICHOLAS  
**

***

Smoothing the hair by my temples, I stepped into the living room of our apartment on the Île-Saint-Louis. My fingers came back greasy from the pomade and I wiped them on the side of my trousers, where they got lost amongst the rest of the stains. When I looked up and saw the others, I got the tingling realisation that one of us was underdressed for the occasion, and that person was me.

Sébastien looked sharp in a black suit and white shirt. Andromache could have passed for a servant of Diana, had she not predated the goddess. And Yusuf beamed in the robes he had laughingly bought the day before, dressed for a court or whatever strange scam we hoped to pull tonight.

‘Is this what you’re wearing?’ asked Sébastien, with more hesitation and tact than either of the other two had afforded me since I’d insisted the Reformation was a fluke.

I squared my shoulders. ‘I’m Yusuf’s servant tonight, am I not?’

‘Do I look like someone who dresses my servants like they’re about to go down a mine? _Caro_ , I am the distraction for tonight, not you.’

‘No one notices workmen,’ I said.

‘This is Paris,’ said Sébastien. ‘We’re infiltrating a group of wealthy occultists who leave their dead friends on their family tombs in full-on evening attire. They get their shirts cleaned and pressed in the countryside just to keep them perfectly white and crisp. If their servants dressed like this, they would be fired.’

He took out his pocket watch and glanced at the time. ‘Can you change in the next ten minutes?’

‘I really think –’

‘Denied,’ all three said in unison.

Yusuf shook his head, his dimples revealing his amusement, as he followed me back into our room. I stripped off the perfectly adequate clothes for a servant on a mission while Yusuf pulled together something more presentable.

I reached for the shirt, but he swatted my hand away.

‘Your fingers will leave stains everywhere,’ he said, as he held it open for me to slide my arms through. ‘This is a nice shirt, Nico. I want it pristine when I get it back.’

‘All right, boss,’ I said. ‘Do I call you “boss” tonight?’

‘I was thinking more “Monsieur the Wise”…’

‘Monsieur the Incredible.’

‘Monsieur of a thousand truths.’

‘Monsieur the Enlightened.’

‘I’ll take that,’ he said. ‘And in return, I think I shall call you… _Nicholas_.’

‘Excellent choice.’ Grinning, careful my greasy hands did not ruin either his clothes or mine, I leant forward and kissed him.

I rolled my shoulders, moving my arms up and down inside the stiff fabric, and cast a longing glance at my linen shirt on the floor. The whole reason I went as a servant was so I could move more easily without being hampered by all these fripperies, but now…

Yusuf eyed me up and down, and his appreciation was not for the sartorial choices alone.

‘I am one lucky man,’ he said, as he picked up a kerchief from his desk and handed it to me. I added my grease stains to the charcoal that resulted from his sketches, and held up my hands for inspection.

‘Clean enough, Monsieur the Enlightened?’

‘You’ll do.’

Golden sunlight slanted through the windows, bathing his face in the reddish-orange of autumn, catching on the silver-thread along his sleeves and neck. I hesitated, then pushed the door shut and reached for Yusuf’s fingers.

‘Are you sure you want to go ahead with… this?’ I asked, gesturing at his robes, the scimitar, the bulbous turban, all of it a kitsch reimagining of the ‘East’.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘It seems…’

‘It seems…?’

‘It seems like it mocks you,’ I said. ‘Like your culture is one to be gawked at or mystified.’

He squeezed my hand. ‘Your Crusader guilt is showing, _habibi_. It’s just for show, just for tonight, and I don’t care if a bunch of death-obsessed French aristocrats don’t recognise how anachronistic it all is. If I’m going to be the distraction , I’d better stand out, right? It’s to pique their interest so the rest of you can go unnoticed.’

‘If you’re sure,’ I said, and he squeezed again in confirmation.

‘Tonight is going to be a laugh. Émile asked if he could be absurd in my back story and this is what he came up with. I intend to milk the character of Monsieur Yusuf the Enlightened for all it’s worth,’ he said with a wink. ‘It’s an intel mission. No need to take ourselves too seriously.’

‘And still I have to dress like this?’ I asked. I put the cufflink between my teeth as I gathered my cuffs, but Yusuf stepped in before I fumbled around anymore, and fastened my sleeves.

‘Like Sébastien said: it’s Paris,’ he said.

I glanced in the mirror again. Gone were the days where men got to wear bright colours for special occasions; the only brightness on my body came from the red cross of St George on my cufflinks, a reminder of Genoa Yusuf had given me. ‘All right then,’ I said.

Yusuf let go of me and lifted his chin haughtily, pursing his lips like a proper Parisian Madame. ‘All right then, _Monsieur the Enlightened_.’

‘We’re not at the party yet,’ I reminded him, and he grinned and kissed me again. Perhaps tonight wouldn’t be too bad after all.

*******

Annoyingly, the others had been right. Once we stepped into the apartment in Montmartre, we were surrounded by elegance. The porter, waiters, and servants all sported spotless black outfits, fancier even than mine. Not to mention the guests, all of whom seemed to attend similarly skilled tailors and jewellers to deck them out perfectly, from their neatly cut, curled, and waxed moustaches to the toes of their shining shoes. Sébastien and Andromache all but faded into the fashionable décor. Yusuf, fortunately, carried himself with such swagger and confidence that even without he robes, he would have been the centre of the party in no time.

‘Where do you want to start?’ he asked in whispered Arabic, which provided privacy as well as the oriental mystique his contact had promised the leader of this little cult. ‘Émile said the host was probably Luc Dantès. Tall, skinny, blond, looks like a modern-day Hermes.’

I wanted to ask what on earth that meant, until I realised that ‘modern-day Hermes’ was exactly the look all male guests aimed for: youthful yet wise, confident with an air of mischief, psychopomps who dipped in and out of the world beyond. I wondered what about them gave that impression; was it the hauteur, the whispers, the cut of their sleeves?

‘That describes half the men in this room,’ I said, discarding those with brown or black hair, but otherwise left with a goodly number of Hermeses.

‘Let’s narrow it down, then,’ said Yusuf. ‘If you were an evil genius killing your friends in cemeteries, where would you hang out at this party?’

‘The shadows.’ I stepped back, distancing myself from him, taking on the role of the invisible servant. From my position by the wall, I surveyed as much of party as possible. Everyone was young, rich, well-dressed, much like the victims found at Père Lachaise had been.

Which one of them would grace their family tomb tomorrow morning? Which one had fallen out of – _or_ , I added uneasily, _into_ – favour?

I tried not to move my mouth at all when I continued, my Arabic coming out like a mumble only Yusuf’s centuries-long experience with it could decipher: ‘Watching the new arrival.’

A black-clad Hermes – his champagne-flute platter announcing him as a servant, not an occultist – appeared by our sides. I accepted one of the flutes, the sparkles of the bubbles leaping over the rim and landing cool kisses on the back of my hand. Yusuf didn’t take any drink, resting his palm on the scimitar by his side, his dazzling smile belying his vigilance.

‘Let’s see if we can mingle,’ he said, his eyes resting on a group of young, conspiratorial guests. Their swept-back hairstyles and creamy shirts would have fit in anywhere in Paris, but the devil was in the detail: a skull-tipped walking stick, the silver rose on a signet ring. ‘Someone here must know this Luc…’

‘Yusuf!’ boomed an unfamiliar voice.

I snapped to attention, champagne in one hand, the heft of my dagger in the other. From the corner of my eye, Yusuf relaxed, his face breaking into a grin at the round-faced, heavy-set man spreading out his arms.

‘Yusuf,’ the man said, ‘my man – what are you doing here?’

‘Armand,’ said Yusuf. ‘Wasn’t expecting to see you in here.’

 _Armand._ I ran through all the names and faces in my mind, but couldn’t recall an Armand more recent than Napoleon. To add to my confusion, Armand leaned forward and whispered, ‘Roland in here. My True name is Roland.’

‘Of course.’ Yusuf didn’t even blink, just nodded as if he expected no different. ‘I’m still Yusuf. My parents got it right the first time.’

‘I’m not surprised. And you…’ Armand – Roland? What on earth did he mean by a true name? – shook my now-daggerless hand in both of his. ‘A face I would recognise out of thousands.’

‘I can’t return that compliment, I’m afraid,’ I said. Remembering my role as a servant, I added, ’Monsieur.’

‘Nobody wants to draw this gob,’ he said, throwing his head back in laughter. So he was one of Yusuf’s fellow artists. I relaxed, knowing that Yusuf would take the lead from here. With one ear pricked for their conversation, I scanned the rest of the room. Blond Hermes after blond Hermes – even Sébastien looked like one of them, a set of cards in his hand, leaning in to listen to the babbling wisdom of one of the other guests. The red shadow of a full-handed slap bloomed on his cheek. Across the room, Andromache curled a lock of hair around her finger, far too beautiful for the young man she was talking to. Everybody else looked elegant, morbid, fashionably bored, but not dangerous.

Nothing about this party explained why we were here, yet unease unfurled in my chest. I’d worried about the _who_ behind these recent murders. The macabre music, knowing glances, and death-soaked design made me realise it was the _why_ we needed to figure out.

‘Would you mind if I sketched you?’ asked Armand, the plural ‘ _vous_ ’ drawing me back into his conversation.

Yusuf stiffened. ‘What, now?’

‘You don’t dress like this when you come to the Atelier,’ said Armand, with nothing but admiration for the ridiculous outfit. ‘And you never bring him.’

Yusuf, forever used to holding the pen instead of being at its mercy, hesitated, but I grabbed the opportunity.

‘Of course,’ I said with a smile. After centuries of posing, I rested my hand on Yusuf’s shoulder for comfort, and used the stillness of the pose to continue my assessment while Armand decorated the back of Yusuf’s invitation. They continued their conversation – typical French nonsense about Art and Symbols and Truth and whatnot – until Yusuf enquired about our host.

‘Luc? Oh, yeah, he’s… That’s him, with the red cravat,’ said Armand, pointing with the tip of his fountain pen at a handsome blond youth at the centre of his little circle. ‘It’s his apartment.’

How could I not have noticed him immediately? Luc Dantès carried himself like he owned not only this apartment, but the world.

He was blessed with easy good looks, not unlike Sébastien’s in their Frenchness: sharp cheekbones, melancholy-tainted lips, dark blond hair swept away from his forehead. He listened, rather than talked, to his group, resting his chin in his hand, his forefinger curled over his mouth.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Whenever the man right by his side spoke, I read his lips, but the flashes of conversation I gathered from it were meaningless without the questions they responded to.

‘ _Utter nonsense! The threshold to the Underworld is, by its very nature,_ liminal…’

‘ _You seem to forget, Pierre, that true mastery of death requires you to travel both ways._ ’

‘ _Is there such a thing as eternal Truth? Only the Soul…_ ’

This friend gesticulated with his wine glass, with his hand, with the twirl of his moustache, pontificating about death as if he had any experience with it other than dressing like an undertaker for fun. Once or twice, amusement flashed in Luc’s eyes at something one of their circle had said; because they stated the obvious? Or the absurd?

 _Who are you, Luc Dantès?_ I wondered. _Why does someone so young, rich, and handsome, concern himself with death like this?_

Perhaps he was one of those young ones obsessed with Baudelaire and Wilde; all that remained was to pull away one of the night-blue or purple velvet drapes to uncover a cursed painting behind it, revealing Luc’s true nature.

Luc excused himself from his group, and I averted my eyes briefly so he wouldn’t notice my stare. I glanced to my side, where Armand was still chatting to Yusuf, still doing our portrait. If Wilde really had been onto something, what would Yusuf’s drawings of me have begun to reveal after nine hundred years?

When I returned my attention to Luc, he stood with his back towards me, face-to-face with Sébastien.

I prayed this was part of Sébastien’s greater plan and he was fully aware of who he was talking to and what that meant for our mission, but the sway of his body betrayed his drunkenness. His features, normally flushed and glowing after a few glasses of wine, had paled to the colour of sour milk. I tried to read his lips, but all I managed to decipher was: ‘I need to piss.’

After those glamorous words to the host, Sébastien rushed to the back. Luc stood frozen as if he had been caught by the Medusa, and my hand sneaked towards my dagger again. If Luc was in charge of all these deaths, he could do Sébastien little lasting damage, but the last thing we needed was a drunk Sébastien bleeding all over the party and then healing again in front of everybody.

But Luc didn’t follow Sébastien.

Instead, he turned around and headed in our direction.

I tensed, and next to me, Yusuf followed my gaze. His hand, which I now realised had been lingering on my ass for the duration of our posing, tapped my cheeks. Time for action.

Yusuf raised his voice to that of a dramatic actor’s, as he walked over to Armand to study the portrait. ‘That is fantastic, Armand!’

In the drama of his praise, I faded further into the background, my dark clothes hiding me in the shadows. Luc didn’t even register me as he slid past, the scent of his cologne lingering behind him. I followed in his wake, keeping my distance when he paused in front of a door so in tune with the dark wood of the room, even I hadn’t noticed it before. Luc pulled a set of keys from his pocket and lifted the cover of the lock. He glanced around him as he did so, and once again, I pretended to be caught up in the wine, the piano sonata, Yusuf’s proud boasts about Persia. Just as he opened the door (not, I noted, shutting it behind him, thereby offering me the perfect opportunity to follow him) – Armand ruined everything.

‘Luc is fantastic at it!’ Armand boomed, so loudly the entire party could hear, drawing attention to our absent host as much as Yusuf. ‘He’s travelled the whole world!’

I froze, hoping my pose were interpreted as awe at Yusuf’s wisdom, hoping Yusuf’s wisdom came up with a solution soon. To my side, the door started to fall shut, the odds of an easy chase diminishing by the second.

Yusuf threw his hands in the air, the wide sleeves of his robes billowing as he drew all eyes to him. ‘Oh, astral projection, astral projection!’ he said, and for a moment I wondered what on earth had happened to get the conversation to that topic.

Never mind. No time.

The lock clicked closed.

First opportunity lost, but Yusuf was loud enough to hide any fumbling I did with the lock, and in truth, it didn’t take me long to break it open. I glanced over my shoulder, but no one was following me – and unlike Luc Dantès, I had the experience to spot a spy on duty. None were here, other than me.

I sought for the others, but none of them noticed me. Yusuf was too caught up in his act and would only have endangered me if he checked; Andromache sat at the end of the other room, shuffling a deck of cards, her eyes on her conversational partner like a wolf examining its prey; and Sébastien seemed to have disappeared altogether.

A solo mission, then.

The door led to a spiral staircase of wrought iron, in a corridor heavy with mould and cold. White light glowed above and guided my feet as I scaled the steps like a ghost. Once I reached the upstairs landing, I hid behind the wall, listening for footsteps, voices, anything from the other room to tell me about the situation.

One person’s heavy breathing. A single pair of shoes walking to and fro. Ruffled papers, nails against canvas. ‘ _Merde._ ’ So only Luc Dantès, our mysterious host.

I could take him easily, but as Andy had constantly reminded us: this was for intel, not action. Silent as a shadow, I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of the other room and felt my stomach plummet.

A cursed portrait would have been the easier problem to deal with.

‘ _Merde,_ ’ Luc whispered again, giving a perfect expression to my thoughts. I clenched my fist, remembering the interaction between Sébastien and Luc, and wished he’d say _merde_ again, because twice did _not_ cover out current situation.

Suddenly, the shadows moved, shortening as the source of light approached. Luc, carrying an oil lamp, appeared on the landing.

I pressed my back against the wall, holding my breath, ready to knock him in the head and grab the lamp before it set fire to the wooden floor – but there was no need. Shaking his head, whispering more _merde_ s, Luc almost ran down the stairs.

I waited until the door closed below me and my surroundings bathed in perfect blackness before I moved again. I retrieved my lighter from my breast pocket. My fingers shook so much, it took five tries before the flame caught, providing a tiny source of illumination in this attic of secrets.

My stomach plummeted when I entered Luc’s study. No velvet, no silver statues of death, no leather-bound books or wine-splattered star charts or satanic symbols painted on the floors circled by candles. Instead, a wall plastered with notes, news clippings, sketches, documents, and even more scattered on the desk.

As I raised the lighter to the desk, I recognised the wide-spaced, low cursive of the Napoleonic army administration. In the alphabetical list, dark smudges of endless fingerprints played around one name:

> _Lelivre, Sébastien Paul_ – _deserter. Hanged on July 19th, 1812._

Next to it, death certificates. One for Léonard Lelivre, dated to 1828. Cause of death: stabbing. Next of kin: his son, Sébastien, and a daughter, Thérèse. Her death certificate was there, too, under the name of Thérèse Dantès. She’d died only three years ago, aged 74, of pneumonia, leaving five children.

It wasn’t difficult to trace the line from our Sébastien to Luc. The sepia pictures on the wall only confirmed it: a middle-aged Thérèse and her children could not be anything but descended from Sébastien, each of them carrying little signs of him in their visage. The curl of the lips, the high forehead, the crinkle by his eyes when he wanted to cry but smiled instead. His face was everywhere, in his offspring, but also, I realised with a start, in the watercolour of his wedding.

My breathing halted in my throat as I moved closer, studying this Sébastien I’d never known. The artist lacked talent, but the love and happiness in the couple’s faces shone through nevertheless. A gorgeous pair. A hopeful pair. Their fingers were entwined, he tilted his head towards her as if he couldn’t get enough of the sight of her.

Underneath their names and the date of the ceremony, later scribbles had been pencilled in: _SPL - not dead in 1823. 1831. 1834._ Each year in a different pen, an ongoing record of Sébastien’s immortality until the year when Jean-Pierre had died.

Sketches of Sébastien covered the wall. His face, his Napoleonic uniform, even a photograph of him from twenty years ago, when we had all gone to Nantes with him to commemorate his centenary.

This wasn’t some normal group of death-worshipping Parisians. They didn’t just follow the current fashion for the macabre. Luc Dantès _knew_.

And he’d recognised Sébastien.

‘ _Cazzo!_ ’

I dashed down the stairs with such speed that the wind blew out the flame of my lighter. Banging my elbows against the railing, nearly tripping over my feet when I reached the bottom, I fell against the door to the salon.

Locked again.

_Cazzo cazzo cazzo._

I repressed the urge to slam against the wood. We could not afford Luc becoming even _more_ suspicious. Nothing upstairs suggested he knew about the rest of us – yet. But our appearance tonight might have changed that forever.

My fumbling hands tried and failed and tried again and eventually succeeded in giving me a light, and I set to picking the lock.

Of course. Sébastien had gone back to his family. He’d gone back and not aged and they’d known something was wrong. Thérèse had been born when Léonard was still alive, must have remembered Sébastien from her youth, or perhaps her mother’s complaints that her husband died when her father-in-law remained youthful and healthy forever.

I always forgot how _young_ Sébastien was. How his life still lingered in his family, how something like this wasn’t just forgotten in a generation or two, but carried on, until eventually it reached the ears of someone who acted on it.

Whatever Luc was planning, tomorrow morning would not see his great-great grandfather dead on a cemetery. But perhaps he was stupid enough to try, to put his new theory to the test, and then we really would be chin-deep in shit.

A thousand disasters could be playing out on the other side of this door. As I juggled the light in one hand, my knife in the other, all that kept me from dashing back up the stairs and pulling a Sao Paolo ‘34 was the knowledge that Andromache and Yusuf were on the other side as well. All was not lost. I just needed this miserable lock to –

Finally, it gave way, and I stumbled into the party.

No bloodshed. No screams. Yusuf stood by the window, next to Armand again, his robes pristine, no signs of struggle. I scanned the crowd for Sébastien, my heart thumping in my throat, but I didn’t see him anywhere.

Within the blink of an eye, Yusuf and I met at the centre of the room. I stared over his shoulder. Where was he? And Luc – where had he gone?

‘We need to leave,’ I told Yusuf. ‘Where’s Sébastien?’

Yusuf nodded at the main entrance, which the porter guarded like a hound. ‘He went through there, I think.’

I grabbed him by the arm, every nerve in my body on edge with the realisation that _both_ of them were gone. ‘Get Andromache. I’ll meet you both at _Le Chat Noir_.’ I increased my grip, Yusuf’s warm physicality a momentary relief, and dashed over to the door. The doorman opened it before I even had to ask, eyeing me with a fear that was, for once, more than justified.

In the cold corridor, I wanted to run – although I didn’t know where, up, down, wherever Luc Dantès left his trail of suspicion – and bumped into Sébastien. Unscathed, smelling of champagne, staring up the stairs as if waiting for Mary Mother of God to come down herself.

‘You’re all right,’ I gasped, more in shock than relief. ‘You’re… all right…?’

He smiled the way he did when he wanted to cry. ‘Of course I am, Nicholas.’

‘Luc –’

‘– is upstairs, with a lady friend,’ he said.

My eyes darted over his face. He looked drunk, miserable, and lonely. But not like he knew. Luc Dantès might have spent the last years surrounded by Sébastien’s features, but Sébastien had not enjoyed the same privilege.

And he could not find out. If he realised his family still wondered about his immortality, still wondered how they could make it theirs, it would break his heart.

A door opened upstairs, a man’s and a woman’s voice arguing with each other, their fight echoing through the stairwell. I grabbed Sébastien and had already dragged him down the first flight before his drunken head had caught up with me.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, craning his neck to look up. The voices upstairs fell silent, and Sébastien’s slurred words resounded loud and clear: ‘Mélisande is very kind, Nico, you might –’

I switched to Occitan, hoping Luc’s upbringing had been too posh to bother with the dialect of his ancestors. ‘We are leaving. Now!’

Above our heads, reverberating footsteps rushed downward. The familiar sound of the chase sobered Sébastien up, and his instincts kicked in. He all but leapt down the final two flights of stairs. With Luc Dantès on our heels, I raised the bolt over the front door, Sébastien pushed it open, we both darted outside.

‘Nico, what’s happening?’ Sébastien asked, as we ran for the end of the street and turned the corner, turned right again. The wind through my hair felt like freedom, even as I realised we wouldn’t be able to live in our apartment on the île-Saint-Louis anymore. Not now Luc had our address after inviting Yusuf.

Sébastien followed me through the winding streets of Montmartre, past mournful accordionists and electric lights and the promises of Paris at night. I didn’t pause for breath until the doors of _Le Chat Noir_ closed behind us, and Sébastien rested a sweaty palm on my shoulder.

‘What is happening?’ he asked again, eyes bloodshot but attentive. ‘Yusuf – Andromache –’

‘They’ll meet us here,’ I said. ‘We just needed to get out of there. It was… That place is none of our business. We should never have gone.’

‘Nico…’

‘I just hate Paris,’ I said. ‘I can’t stand to be here. The fashion and their obsession with death and the way they think happiness is inelegant, I can’t have it. It suffocates me. We’re leaving, and I am not coming back.’

Did he realise I was hiding something? I tried to keep my face annoyed rather than upset, bored rather than concerned. Sébastien sighed, as if he agreed with me, and turned towards the bar.

With some luck, he’d drink enough to forget tonight altogether.

*******

‘Where did Yusuf go again?’ Andromache asked, throwing her bag over her shoulder. The long night of packing had left dark circles underneath her eyes, even if she had consumed so much baklava that she was jittery from sugar.

I poured myself another cup of coffee. ‘He wanted to pick up some sketches from the Atelier. Shouldn’t be much longer.’

And as if by magic, the door to our apartment opened and Yusuf stepped in for the last time, a large folder clasped underneath his armpit, a paper bag from the downstairs _boulangerie_ in his other hand. His magnificent robes had ceded to dark grey travel clothes; all he needed was a pair of spectacles and he could pass for a university professor travelling for his research.

‘All packed?’ he said, surveying the bags scattered around the room. Most of it, we’d leave; the apartment was in one of my fake names, and we didn’t have to clear it completely. We always preferred travelling light.

He handed Andromache and me a croissant each. ‘Where’s Seb?’

‘Catching some sleep,’ said Andromache.

‘Ah, good. Otherwise this might be a tad awkward. Look.’ He reached into one of the pockets inside his coat and pulled out a piece of thick, creamy paper, elegant save for the large tear on the right side.

‘What’s that?’ asked Andromache with a frown.

‘A sketch Armand drew of us last night,’ he said, turning it over so we could see the dark blue outlines of ourselves. Yusuf, beaming; me, expressionless like a statue; Andromache, pensive; I swallowed when I realised who had been on the final quarter of the page, his hand still resting on Andromache’s waist.

‘What happened to it?’ she asked, taking the invitation. ‘Where’s…?’

‘The host needed a piece of paper to scribble some notes on, apparently,’ said Yusuf, blissfully ignorant in his faith in people. ‘Really urgently, apparently. He’d torn off Sébastien before Armand could stop him. A shame, it was a good portrait of him.’

I swallowed as Yusuf folded the drawing back into his pocket. Another piece of Luc’s puzzle. Well, all his friends and followers believed in the incredible; no one was going to take him any more seriously than they did his tarot-reading or name-inventing friends. I hoped.

‘Let’s get Sébastien and leave,’ I said. ‘I’m done with this town.’

**Author's Note:**

> Really hope this final instalment was stil understandable for those who haven't read the others and enjoyable for everyone who made it this far. Thank you to everyone who has left a review, they really do make my day!


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